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Published: March 23rd 2011
I blinked and missed spring. It had been cold here. Not the biting cold of Kyrgyzstan, but chilly nonetheless. The chilly winter broke into bright balmy days with cool nights. For about 2 days last week, it was absolutely beautiful. I daresay breathtaking, if you can ignore the bland barren brown landscape dotted with flies. I even saw a couple of girls in the bathroom who thought it would be a great idea to lay out in the sun from 11-1 in tiny shorts. Needless to say their legs looked like lobsters in the bathroom. A-- it's a desert, B -- they're very white to begin with, and C -- they're taking doxycycline, a medication to prevent malaria, which also happens to make you very sensitive to the sun. Not the brightest stars in the sky. For those 2 days, it was wonderful. Then it started getting warm. It felt like 90s, but I hear it was mostly 80s. It was warm. I was breaking a sweat being outside. The nights were very comfortable in minimal clothing. In the daytime, the sun was beating down on us, and any kind of mild exertion precipitated sweating. Someone said, "I hope you enjoyed
Does anyone have a saddle?
Look at the size of this thing! Holy crap!the spring, because now it's summer." Crossing my fingers it was just a little warm spell.
With the warming weather comes the plague of flies. It's not a black cloud (literally) yet, but I feel like we have the potential to get there. Fruit flies, tiny biting flies, HUGE flies (the fast ones, not the slow easy targets like in Iraq), sand flies, etc... I never saw so many different species of flies. Seriously, one was so big it could have been mistaken for a really small bird. I did see one dragon fly by the back door at work. Made me happy. I wish I could breed those things and set them free here. I once saw one swoop down and attack a mosquito in mid-air, then land and proceed to devour it. It was AWESOME! I can only hope they're that vicious with flies.
It's strange how we mark time out here. The other day I opened a new little tube of toothpaste. That signals another month down. Some people go by their malaria medication -- one bottle lasts about 30 days (I cheat and just use the stuff in medical, so I can't use that).
Happy St Patty's Day!
Creepy got something fun in the mail. In the background is our St Patty's Day spread, complete with green frosted cupcakes! My extra duty day at the FLAS only comes once a month -- I can't believe it was this week already! It's interesting what little signals in life we use to track time. Before you know it, it'll be Easter! Heck, it's already St. Patty's day... Crazy to think of where I was last year (there's a blog for that one too!)
Ash Wednesday was celebrated here as Ash Tuesday at my usual Protestant service (the closest to Lutheran that I can come at a decent hour. I think there actually is a Lutheran service, but it's an hour earlier). The service was very nice! If you recall from my last blog, I've been boycotting the service since the Baptist pastor made some disparaging comments about gays. I waited him out, and now he's gone! He attended the Ash Tuesday service, but just as a congregant. My favorite pastor here, Chaplain Tiff, did the service. In fact, there was a base-wide email not only announcing the service, but also who was performing it. I felt like it was a sign when I saw his name in my email box. He's back! No more hoping the other guy won't preach
Fun Coffee Grinder
This is Maggie's, but I thought it was so cute! She's really into coffee/tea. Me...eh. I like the idea of it more than I like it. (and he usually did). So I went to the service, and was not disappointed. I then went to church on Sun as well. Again, fantastic. Great sermons that he really presents well. He's not a particularly gifted orator, but he makes very astute analogies between the Biblical message and today's life. Great sermons. I find myself actually looking forward to Sun morning so I can go to church. It also gives my week a sense of purpose. Funny -- this must have been what it felt like hundreds of years ago, when life was monotonous and boring. The only thing to really look forward to was church. Now, with TV, movies, restaurants, friends, and other engagements, it's hard to find time or excitement for church. I guess when you're in the middle of the desert with nothing else to do, it starts to become fun. I went to war and found religion.
Something else I've started doing to pass the time, and take on a new activity, is taking Pashto classes. Pashto is one of the many languages spoken in Afghanistan, and also a very prominent one. It's similar to Arabic, in that it has an alphabet with a
Riding Jumpseat
In my favorite position of late. I've been battling with motion sickness, this flight included. I seem to have hit my stride with night flights, using NVG goggles. Hope I can keep it up! I still need lots of hours... bunch of squiggly lines. It also has a ch (from the back of the throat) sound similar to what's in Hebrew. I've taken some Spanish, French, Italian, and learned a few words/phrases in Japanese. It's very different from any language I've ever taken. The teacher’s name is Ahmadi, and he is an Afghan American currently working as a contractor for the US government as a translator. Before working for the government (he's been here for 2 years), he was a civil engineer living in Vegas. He grew up in Afghanistan (Kabul and Kandahar) and actually went to school with Massoud, the General who was leading the fight here against the Russians (had them pretty well licked) in the 80s-90s. Massoud was assassinated on Sept 9, 2001, ironic since he had previously warned the West that if we didn’t help them fight the Taliban, it would end up in our backyard. The Pashto classes have been fun and intellectually stimulating. He thinks we can become fluent (basically) within 3 months. The classes are Tues/Thurs for an hour, and so far he hasn't assigned homework. Without some serious home study, I doubt 3mos would cut it.
It's great to learn a
Transplanted Tomato Plant
It's not doing quite so well now... It was overgrowing everything in the Aerogarden, and not really making much in the way of tomatos. We bought soil on amazon and planted it! Also planted grass... That's a little slower going. completely new language, but there really isn't an application for it here. Most of the contractors who work on base are from EVERYWHERE else but here. India, Nepal, Uganda, Kenya (the last 2 were more in Iraq than here), Turkey, Russia, Czech, etc. You name it. Not much Pashto spoken on base. Probably the only place I would be able to use it would be in the hospital here, and only if they happen to speak Pashto, not Dari or some other local dialect. **I wrote this section a few weeks ago, when I first started the classes. Since then, I’ve realized that the teacher, while well-intentioned, doesn’t have a great plan or method of teaching. Instead of learning pronouns, colors, days of the week, simple verb conjugation, he throws random sentences at us. He’s teaching in immersion style, which would be great if I ever encountered anyone who spoke Pashto (I definitely don’t). I decided that it’s more of a pain to go than it’s worth. Even if I did get a basic level of fluency, how would I keep it up in the US? Would it even be worth it? Eh. I’d rather spend more time reading, crocheting,
Transplanted Flowers
These are actually doing much better than the tomato. Still in bloom! watching TV shows from the hard drive, doing puzzles, or writing blogs.
Before this Pashto class, the majority of what I knew about Afghan culture was from reading The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Wow! What amazing books! That should be required reading for anyone coming here. Such an interesting view of what we're doing here. Made me feel a little better and more justified about our mission here. Also really made me hate the Taliban even more. Highly recommend it. I checked with Ahmadi, the Pashto speaker. Since he grew up here, and this is where it's set, I figured he'd have good insight about the book. He confirmed that it's essentially true. I was wondering if the viewpoints in the book were skewed or some of the stories dramatized for fiction, but he indicated that it was an accurate description of life here. Crazy.
I also just finished the second book by Laura Hillenbrand in as many weeks. First I read Unbroken, which turned out to be such an amazing story. Hard to believe that it's true. And the main character is still alive! It's about Louis Zamperini who was an Olympic runner who
Puzzle #1
Not a bad puzzle. So nice to sit there and do them. Relaxing. I always did them with mom, and was working on one around Xmas before I left. Reminds me of happy times in a warm house filled with the aroma of mom's lasagna :) I can almost taste it... set world records, then became a WWII airman, was shot down and spent 40+ days floating a sea, then was captured by Japan and spent the last few years of the war in POW camps. What a fast-paced and moving story! Recommend this one even higher than Kite Runner or Thousand Splendid Suns! After I read this, I found a copy of Seabiscuit, by the same author. I hadn't really been interested in a book about a horse, made into a movie starring Tobey Maguire (yech), but I'm so glad I gave it a try! What a great story! Now I kind of want to see the movie, despite the cast. I also noticed that they're planning on making Unbroken into a movie. I was aghast to see that they casted Nicholas Cage in the lead role. OMG. I really hope he rediscovers his early days when he could act. If he ruins the movie, I will be so pissed. I have no idea what the hell they were thinking when they cast him as the lead. Holy crap. What a waste. Read the book before he screws up the movie!
Reading books is one of the many ways
Puzzle #2
This puzzle was a little too easy, but still fun. Stupid picture though. Really stupid. Found it in the USO. Free puzzle! of passing the time out here. I lost count of how many I’ve read so far. Fortunately, all of them have been good. Maggie and I have a big collection of classics in the room. Every time we pass a morale bookshelf, we scour it for anything classic or worth reading. Most people here have either a Nook or Kindle, but I never caved. While it’s convenient to have a bunch of books at your fingertips, I still like the feeling of having a book in your hands. Or maybe I’m just being stubborn like I was with the iPod and I’ll get a Nook/Kindle when I get home.
Last week I finished reading a book called The Shack. It was highly recommended by my mom, so I ordered it on amazon and read the whole thing in 2 days. I was so amazed and awed by the book and felt changed. What an incredible story! Then I found out it wasn’t a true story, and suddenly the balloon deflated. Maybe if I knew it wasn’t a true story from the beginning, I would have felt differently, but instead I felt duped (there was a “Forward” written by “Willie”
Puzzle #3
This one was a little tougher. The border is repeating, which always makes for a challenge. Still finished it in a couple of days. making the whole thing sound plausible as a true story. I put forward in quotes, because I thought by the nature of it being a forward, it was generally NOT part of the story. The author had Wm. right before his first name, so I assumed his first name was actually William.) Anyway, I was going to enthusiastically recommend this book to everyone, but instead, I’m bitter and annoyed about it. Yeah, sure, it was a nice story. Blah blah blah. But nothing special. I’m sure someone will disagree with me on this (Aunt Mad, you’d probably love it anyway). And like I said, if I knew it was fiction before I read it, maybe I’d feel differently.
Immediately after finishing The Shack (and looking it up online to find out it’s not true – which by the way is a common search term on the internet. Apparently I wasn’t the only one duped), I picked up a book called Timbuktu. A fun book written from the viewpoint of the dog of a homeless man. Interesting story, and interesting point of view. Actually, it’s the second book I’ve read that’s told from the viewpoint of the dog. The first
Water Sports
Maggie skipping rocks in our little pond. Also in the pic are Fuzzy and Creepy, 2 of the pilots. A short time later, Vector Control came out and poured something in the standing water to kill any mosquito larvae. Here's hoping... was at the beginning of my last deployment, and was incredible – The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein. Highly recommend that one. This one was fun too. He didn’t stick the ending as well for me with this one though. Left me feeling a little empty. The ending, to me, is even more important than the beginning. At the beginning, you have to sell me on it so I don’t lose interest. However, if you don’t leave me with a good aftertaste, not only am I not going to recommend it to others, but I’m not sure how well I’ll think of it later. Much like a good dish of food (my favorite analogy), a good book should make you feel satisfied and full, not a little hungry with a weird taste in your mouth. It was a quick read, though, so I’ll give it that. My next one is Farenheit 451, after which I thought I would read Brave New World, but I don’t think I could do 2 of those in a row. Not sure what’s next, but I’m about a day away from finishing 451 so I’ll have to come up with something
How many guys does it take...?
haha There was probably a stupid joke in there. This is the hangar, and a typical sight. The aircraft constantly have little things that need to be tweaked. fast.
Recently, the British side of the base held a marathon/half-marathon. Maggie had been trying to get me to run it with her, but I resolutely declined. I’m not sure if I’ll ever run another marathon, but it’s not going to be here. I can’t deny how poetic it would have been, but I can’t imagine training out here. Yuck. It’s hilly, incredibly dusty, and rocky. In a word: terrible. So instead, I went for the supporting role and met Maggie (and a few other squadron members) at the finish line with a bag of stuff. It was weird being on that side of things. I noticed how everyone else there is like chopped liver, but the runners are like golden children. Much like the attitude towards patients in some medical clinics. If I strayed too close to the runners’ tent, I was shooed away. Couldn’t even get a bottle of water. Couldn’t even look inside to see if my friends were there! Are you kidding me?? It had me wondering if that’s how it was like at my marathon. Probably. I guess if you figure that all that hubbub was there for the sole person of these people
Mess Tent
On the right of the pic is the building we work in. Last blog had a view from the front. Just to the left is the mess tent, where we get our meals. It now has a sun shade over it, so it looks even cooler. Food is awful though. running, maybe it’s justified. It was quite weird being on the other side, though, and I’m not sure how much I liked it. Seeing everyone crossing the line and feeling good about themselves made me wish I had run it. I remember when I was marathon training, and the thought of running 5 miles or 10 miles, or even a half-marathon, was suddenly so ridiculously easy (ok, maybe the former was ridiculously easy, the others were just very minor challenges). I guess I’m out of practice. Maybe someday I’ll return to it. Maybe…
The only other milestone was passed in March (besides the ides), was St. Patrick’s Day. Maggie and I tried to get festive and help everyone celebrate a random, not-really-holiday just for the sake of something different. We made cupcakes and frosted them with green icing. A couple of months ago, I bought a very simple toaster oven (love amazon!), which has served us well. The only problem is that the smoke detector in my office is RIDICULOUSLY sensitive! And forget about disconnecting it – it’s wired into the building. Oh, and when it goes off, they ALL go off. I had those silicone baking trays for
The Gym
Outside view. It's right next to our building (so close that I can hear the music through my office wall). The tent on the right is cardio, on the left is weights. the cupcakes, but I guess since it was the first use, they were off-gassing just a little. Very faint plastic smell. Enough, though, to set off the fire alarm. Jeez. I ended up taking the toaster oven outside and plugging it into the wall. Once we did that, everything went fine. I have a jug of real oil (just like home!), and some powdered eggs (still suspect). I think it was the eggs, but the first batch didn’t quite taste right. A little off. It wasn’t rancid oil, but that would have been my first guess. The second batch was a little better, but still not quite like home. But it’s the point that counts. We frosted them with green icing and added some sprinkles sent out by a friend for the festivity. Add to that some decorations from here and there and we had a nice little party! I walked around with the cupcakes to all the shops and got everyone into the fake-holiday spirit. It was fun and something different. Looking forward to coloring Easter eggs!
I liken being deployed to being in jail, just without the negative social implications. As we do our time here, we
Cardio Room
The tent on the right. This is where I try to spend some time. Mostly do elliptical. Can't wait for the treadmill to come! They said 4-6mos when we first got here. Ha! Great. watch other squadrons’ time come up and they get ready to redeploy (go on parole). It’s time for yet another of the flight surgeons here to leave. Another nice way to mark time. There will only be one other flight surgeon left who will leave first. It’s like being on deck in softball. We’re currently in the hole (third), but we’re about to be on deck (second)!
And so, I’ve been passing time. We are 1 week away from the 90 day mark, which is when this is OFFICIALLY a deployment for me. My dad is doing extremely well after his hip surgery, which takes a giant load off my mind. My parents got a new dog that I can’t wait to see, a little yorkie named Quincy. Now I’m just marking time with whatever little projects I can come up with. Perhaps I’ll have more news in my next blog. Until then…
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Ann
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Looks like summer camp
Great blog. love the pictures. Interesting that you're spending Lent in the desert/wilderness. So did Jesus, immediately after he was baptized by John the Baptist. And he was probably not too far from where you are now. Glad you got a handle on the air sickness. The marathon looks like it was fun especially with the costumes. Must have been hot to run in them though. Miss you and love you. Will have lasazna waiting for you when you come home.